First you need to know if it's the turntable and not the amplifier or connections. Unplug the RCA Jacks right at the turntable. The male jack should be the one(s) going to the amplifier/receiver. Just holding your finger against the jack tip should give you a loud buzz out of your speakers. If not, the cabling, or more likely the switch selections on the amp are set improperly. It isn't likely at all that the cartridge is bad on both left and right channels. Check switch settings carefully.
Thanks for your email and expansion of the problem. The ohmeter readings seem incorrect; 50 ohms might be about right for one channel of the cartridge and an open circuit isn't correct for anything. Did you do a good visual of the 4 wires connected to the cartridge? Still need to establish that you can make the speakers hummmmmmm by touching the input wires to the preamp. Even if you just take an ohmeter probe into the (L) and (R) preamp jacks, with your finger touching the other end of the probe wire, you should get 60 cycle hum from the speakers. If you can establish that the system will produce (L) and (R) 60 hz hum, then you know the problem is in the turntable wiring or cartridge.
Solution #1
posted on Aug 24, 2009
azgene36
Rank: Wiz
Rating: 84%, 28 votes
First you need to know if it's the turntable and not the amplifier or connections. Unplug the RCA Jacks right at the turntable. The male jack should be the one(s) going to the amplifier/receiver. Just holding your finger against the jack tip should give you a loud buzz out of your speakers. If not, the cabling, or more likely the switch selections on the amp are set improperly. It isn't likely at all that the cartridge is bad on both left and right channels. Check switch settings carefully.
Comments:
Aug 24, 2009
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Frequency Response 15-22,000 Hz
Channel Separation 23/17 (dB at 1 kHz/10 kHz)
Vertical Tracking Force 3.0 - 5.0 grams
Stylus Construction Bonded round shank
Output 5.3 mV at 1 kHz, 5 cm/sec
Channel Balance 1.5 dB
Stylus Shape 0.4 x 0.7 mil elliptical
Cantilever Alloy tube
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Thanks for the feedback. I should have included the following info: I thought the problem might be my new pre-amp (bought because of new H-K AVR-254 receiver). But I plugged the turntable into my old receiver where it worked previously, and again got no sound. I also pulled out my volt-ohm meter: touching the white male RCA jack and the cartidge pin where the white wire connected, I got a reading of about 20 ohms; touching red RCA jack and the the cartidge pin where the red wire connected, I got no reading at all. I'm not sure what this means, if anything. The cable with the RCA jacks (which go to the preamp) is connected straight into the turntable--no jacks there. Any other way to test out this cable without tearing into the innards of the turntable? Thanks again.
Thanks once again azgene36 for your help. You were right--it isn't the phono cartridge(which I probably should replace anyway). I think I've isolated the problem--the preamp seems dead. I hooked the phono back to my old receiver and used the headphone jack for output in order to bypass the iffy speakers--the turntable worked fine. I double checked my settings on the new receiver and tried using other analog audio inputs on the new receiver--nothing. I check the cables, they are good. I got no sound when holding my finger against the jack tip, as you suggested. I've emailed back to the preamp company (phonopreamps.com) about a return, and I'm thinking an phonopreamp upgrade might be a good idea to prevent futher headaches. Thanks again for your generous help.
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